War's Efflorescence
by tolkienlover
Summary: Elisabeth has been confused since she awoke in a field, the very one where she was sentenced by a Great Knight to a colder exile than she could of imagined. A major change in her fate that may just save them all...or one that will be the end of everything. (rating may go up in later chapters; AU Fire Emblem: Awakening)
1. Prologue

_Author's Note:_

 _Hey guys! Okay, so instead of totally working on the other things I should be doing, I've been working on this long-time-in-the-making fic, which I've absolutely slaved over for a few months...on just the outline. At this point, I've written a few chapters, but I really can't wait to post them so I'll be updating as frequently as possible!_

 _Anyways, I absolutely hope you enjoy it (it IS a very different take on Awakening, so if you have any comments/questions, feel free to let me know!) and best wishes!_

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 ** _Disclaimer -_** _Fire Emblem: Awakening is, sadly, not mine. All credit for characters, setting, and some of the plot goes to it's rightful owners. Cheers!_

* * *

 **Prologue –**

It felt that in that moment, the world slowed.

Ilya could see the soldiers marching ever on towards her, their straightened jackets a crisp, blooded red that matched the title of Plegia, the crown of the Mad King, the mark of a downed monarchy. She could see the crying people in the crowd, screaming for their queen, sobbing, or even the few that stood with straight faces to show their utmost respect, their heads bowed.

She could see the mark of Grima on her hand, the same hand that was chained to the guillotine that she was soon to be beheaded under—the mark glistened in the light of the sun, an oddly ironic thing, Ilya thought, as she considered her fate. Yes, it highly ironic that her mark of the Fell Dragon would glisten on the day of her death.

She could see the anxious tapping of her husband's foot from where he sat atop his throne, the creased brow of his face, the beads of sweat that donned his cheeks and fell down past his nose. He was nervous, she mused, her mouth slightly entertained at the thought and twisted up in the corners, even if it revealed just the smallest of smiles. She did deserve to smile on her death day, at least.

She could see the way that the man who was to kill her walked up the stairs, his axe heavy in his hands, and everything in that moment hit at once, perhaps for the better. It was best to only feel the fear just before the death anyways, she figured.

And Ilya was happy to die—it was her time to pay for her crimes, the ones that she felt were dignified in their own rights, the ones she felt were understandable and true when it came to the choices in her life. The crimes that really should not of been crimes, the ones that would have been moral, would have been sane, would have been _right_ if she hadn't married that bastard of a king.

She could see now the fault in her ways, how she should of waited to be married, how being tricked by the king for her beauty and her grace and her elegancy was a mistake. The Mad King of Plegia had no place among his people, had no place in royalty or dignity or even honesty. Gangrel used her to earn the people's trust and now—well now he was just throwing it all away.

The queen, killed for her wrongdoing and shame to her country. Ilya could see the headlines now and once again, the smile to her mouth widened in just the slightest way as she looked out over her people. One face caught in particular and the once entertained smile fell from her face.

He was the reason for her wrongdoing, the reason she betrayed her husband; the man in the crowd was cloaked but his face was revealed, his eyes watching ever-so insistently on the woman chained to the place she would die. Ilya figured he wouldn't come. Too much pain for the both of them.

"Ilya Fairhallow," the voice came, loud and unbecoming, and the woman couldn't ignore it, no matter how hard she tried to block it from her mind. She tore her gaze from the man she loved to look up at the speaker. Her husband stood from his throne as he spoke, toying with the tassels that fell around his neck from the cape that he so did not deserve. "You have wronged both your kingdom and your people by shaming your husband and thus must pay the most ultimate price. Do you admit to your crimes?" Gangrel took a step closer. "Or will you defend them?"

The square of the city grew silent, the people sniffling or sniveling or wiping at their eyes just a noise to the wind. It took a moment for the woman to collect her thoughts, to bring herself to the present time as she was brought back from the slowed time of her own mind. Ilya raised her head and looked her king straight in the eye, defiant and proud.

"I will defend them."

More silence.

"Sleeping with a man while married to another is not a crime recommended to defend, Ilya," Gangrel drawled, as if he was growing bored. The woman figured he already had another woman lined up to marry for tomorrow, considering she herself was no longer of any use. She tried to resist another smile. "What say you in your defense?"

"I was in love," she said simply, and the king took a step back in surprise, as though her answer actually shocked him. "When we were married, Gangrel, I thought _we_ were in love. But I was wrong. We weren't in love, we were in lust. Or more so, perhaps, _you_ were. I had always thought what we had was love."

"Irrelevant," the man spat, and his face twisted up. "If you do not have anything worth my time to add to your case, then let us get on with it."

"When you beat me was when I realized we weren't in love. I was the only one that was feeling anything other than _primal instinct_. I was the only one who wasn't driven by lust, but by compassion, by true feelings, and by what I felt was right. So when you beat me again, Gangrel, what was I supposed to do?" Ilya's face grew darker, her eyes tightened. "Sit alone in fear that I wouldn't make it through the day? Through the month? The year? He made me _happy_ and he _loved_ me, which by all means was much more than you could ever do."

" _Enough!_ " The king's face had grown red, his face bulging. His hands had turned pure white where they clutched tightly at the hilt of his sword. "Your son was found to be of another man's blood than mine, thus proving your guilt and enough evidence for your death. In turn, I must cleanse my home of the unworthy blood, beginning with you…and ending with your son."

Ilya's face changed immediately, her eyes shifting into panic, her mouth turning down. Her pale hair fell in waves over her face as she pleaded, fighting for one of the things that she was already dying for. She struggled in her restraints, reaching ever more towards the man who ordered her death. " _No!_ Not him. Please not him. Let him be! I'm already paying full price for my crimes, Gangrel. Let my son go."

He watched her for a moment, her pleading face, and watched as the blood fell from her wrists, the ones that had struggled against the chains and split themselves in the process, and then gave a slight, maniac smile. "Though your death will be much less than what blood should be spilt, I will house the boy of unworthy blood as my own. Perhaps because I feel as though it is of my own fault he was brought into this world. All because I married a bitch, the child is forced to be a part of this."

When the crowd began to hum in just a slight approval, Ilya realized what fatal mistake she had fallen into. It had been a trap, she realized, a muse to get the people to approve of their king. Now he was sparing a young boy with a mother who was soon to die—he was being merciful, he was being kind.

And everything Ilya had fought for was gone.

"Kill me, then," she whispered, and she turned her head to the crowd, tears glistening in her eyes, "Kill me then and be done with it, for I have many things that need to be done and only an eternity to do them."

The axe man pushed her into position, her head roughly shoved against the wooden frames, and as she looked out over the faces of people she knew so well, the people she had always fought for, she found the face she was looking for hidden amongst those in the back. He gave her a look of sorrow, but from his cloak, she could see the tiny arm of an infant, the pale, smooth skin of a child. Her daughter raised her arm again, and it was nearly as if she was saying farewell, a gesture goodbye.

Ilya felt a tear fall down her face as the man in the crowd gave her a deep nod, his eyes caught up in hers. Her mouth moved to whisper with no sounds, to form the words that she wanted him to hear in the last few moments in the sunlit day of her end. "Keep her safe, Validar," she mouthed, "Keep her safe."

And with that, the axe fell and so ended the reign of Ilya the Queen.


	2. Something Gone Wrong

**_One_** **–** _Something Gone Wrong_

* * *

The first thing she was aware of was how horrible her head felt.

It felt as though someone had driven a nail between her temples and with every beat of her heart, they struck it harder with a mallet— _clink, clink, clink_. The throbbing between each thought that flitted from behind the darkness of her consciousness made her want to flinch in discomfort, made her want to move her hands to rub at her temples to at least soothe a bit of the hurt away.

Her head swirled and everything that had tried so desperately to become a coherent thought dissipated into dust, thus leaving the woman with nothing to work with, nothing to go off of. She was little more than a lost mind, her head unable to function, the steady thumping of her heart the only thing she was consciously able to take a grasp of.

When she finally heard a noise beyond the rhythmic press of her bloodstream, however, she tried to focus onto it, tried to pull herself from the dark ocean that was her lost conscious and form a full thought on what she was hearing…

"—we can't just _leave_ her there," a voice, the first one other than a conscious the woman had heard in ages, said quietly, in quite a childish manner.

"What do you propose we do?" The next voice was a bit deeper, but bore the same, familiar accent and twist of words that made the woman's head spin worse.

That was when, unfortunately, everything hit her at once.

Her own voice, the little one that spoke to her inside her head, awoke from its drowsiness and the slow and rusted gears within her mind started up again, spinning and spinning and spinning until the woman awoke within her own body. The thoughts she had tried so hard to form within the past few ages of laying still came rushing back, zooming around her head like a whirlwind, wild and uncontrolled. Feelings, memories, reminders—they all came hurtling towards her through the darkness of her closed eyelids.

Feelings of happiness and joy lit her up like a firework, memories of making snowmen in the backyard, of showing someone a piece of work she had done with a proud grin, of hugging a friend who she hadn't seen awhile.

There was grief and sadness, too, however; the feeling of loneliness, of unworthiness, of low self-worth—there were the memories of tears and sad goodbyes and shameful moments when she was yelled at by an adult.

And it all vanished as soon as it came.

Every memory, every thought, every wish—they all scattered, and though she tried desperately to save them, they were lost in the depths of her own mind.

The woman groaned as her eyes flickered open.

She was first aware of the strange sensations that hit her, like the fact that she could see the endless, blue sky above her, that she knew that it was both blue and the sky, and that she knew that the sky _should_ be blue...but how she knew any of that was beyond her. How she had learned things was beyond her…how she had done _anything_ was beyond her, in all honesty.

When she blinked heavily again and reopened her eyes, something new caught her attention.

Two faces, both centered with wide eyes and curious expressions, watched her expectantly, both with something in the way their noses were crinkled up that made them almost similar, though they looked nothing alike. A man with dark, navy hair who was the obvious elder of the girl who stood beside him, who, what with her springy, blonde pigtails and youthful green eyes, showed a more childish side to her appearance.

They both watched her with intense gazes.

"Hey there," the blonde said finally, not shyly at all as the woman thought she would sound, and she smiled. The staff in her hand planted itself into the ground as the girl leaned forward to speak.

"There are better places to take a nap then on the ground, you know," the man said, and his voice was much nicer to listen to then the girl's, with a lower, more peaceful melody thrumming beneath each word. "Here, give me your hand."

Shakily at first, the girl on the ground reached out a hand, as if realizing that she was, in fact, in control of her arms and her legs and her body in general. The dark mark etched into the skin below her knuckles surprised her and she pulled her hand back instantly to examine it, only to reach out once more to let herself be pulled to her feet.

She nearly toppled forward into the man, her balance very heavily off as she tried desperately to regain control of herself. When she was finally standing steadily, she sighed and then nodded. "Thank you."

Her voice was nearly as shaky as her legs were, but as soft and as gentle as the two had expected it to be—it matched her careful face, one set with emerald eyes and a small nose, for her voice to be quiet. She shook her head, softly, and then blinked her eyes again to focus hazily on whom she was attempting to speak with.

The childish girl attempted conversation first. "I can tell it hurts you to speak right now," she began quietly, and the woman flinched at the sound of more words, her mind trying desperately to process them, "but could you tell us what you're doing way out here? It's not exactly, uhm, 'lady approved', as Frederick would put it."

The woman bit at her lip for a moment, her head tilted just to the left, and then swiped her tongue across her teeth in thought. As she began flipping through her thoughts, a flash of pain shot through her head—she forced herself to search the darkness of what memories she had left, and she cried out, her hands going to her head.

"Whoa, hang on," the girl came closer to the woman with her hands wrapped around her temples and pushed her staff slightly into the girls side, touching the wood against her and letting off a bit of healing dust onto the girl's cloak. "Don't wear yourself out! It doesn't matter right now, anyways. I wouldn't recommend doing _that_ again…whatever that was."

Her hands falling from around her face, the woman blushed dark red and bit at her lip again. "Ah, I—I apologize, I don't think, uhm…" She trailed for a moment before looking out over the empty field, the yellowing grass moving slightly in the gentle breeze and then startled, turning back. "I'm sorry, but ah, where am I?"

They stared for a moment.

"You're just north of Ylisstol," the man replied, with a bit of hesitancy.

"Ylisse, then," she said with a nod and a brief smile, "Thank you, Chrom."

It was a bit like before, her short black-out—the minute the last word, the name, _Chrom_ , dropped from her lips, memories hit her like an arrow, hard and fast-hitting. Chrom, the Prince of Ylisse; Chrom, the Captain of the Guard; Chrom, the blue-haired man she had seen in one of her memories, one of the ones before, with flashing feelings and strong desires. Not so much the memory of the man himself, but the memory of who he was, of who he stood for.

Like a man from a history book.

The woman took a step back in her realization as they watched her with surprised eyes.

"Ah, so you know me then?" he said slowly, hesitantly.

She didn't reply, lost in the realization of something new, that she was remembering knowledge that she had somehow lost. The blank, swirling haze of a mind that she called her thoughts had actually revealed something to her.

How odd.

"I—I'm afraid not," she replied at last, biting at her lip again. "Your name, well, it sort of just… _came_ to me."

Chrom raised an eyebrow. "Then perhaps you could shed a bit of light yourself," he said. "Tell me, then, why are you here of all places?"

Her face furrowed. "I don't think I know, Chrom." One of the slim hands at her side reached up to run through her hair as she sighed. "You wouldn't happen to know who I am, would you?"

The man opened his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted nearly immediately.

"Chrom!" the voice shouted, and Chrom responded to his name by turning instantly, his head tilted to see who was calling him. Another man, with sturdy, blue armor and a head of dark hair approached, a stern expression upon his face. "I ask you back away, milord. I shall handle this."

"Frederick, there's no need to overreact—"

" _Milord!_ " Frederick turned his head just enough to give the prince a glance before returning his eyes to highly confused woman before him. The lance in his hands became prevalent as he pointed it closer to the amnesic, his intention more than clear. "I _ask_ that you back away. Immediately."

Chrom took a step back, his arm reaching out for the blonde woman behind him instantly, shielding her from what danger his knight warned of. "What's going on here, Frederick?"

"What has she told you, milord? What _lies_ has this traitor spilled into your ears?" The knight poked his lance a bit more forcefully into the woman's cloak as she stumbled backwards, her face growing in alarm.

Her hand went instinctively to something at her waist, and when her fingertips met cold metal, she yelped in surprise. The cool grasp of a hilt felt familiar in her hold as she pulled the sword from its sheathe at her waist, her body still shaky, her limbs still warming with drowsiness and now, from the adrenaline and slight fear that thrummed beneath her skin. She was obviously unfit for battle—or for anything, really—but the way she watched Frederick, a dangerously determined gleam to her eye, was enough to make Chrom take another step back, his grip on the younger girl's arm tightening.

"She's said nothing," he replied willingly. "She claims she remembers nothing, though, and I believe her. Recollecting any sort of thought seems to cause her harm, almost as if she's in pain."

"Then lies she has spilled," Frederick said, and his voice was so low and dark that the woman's sword-arm shook, her feet dancing to step just in the slight to back up, her eyes never leaving his. "She's a war criminal, milord, from southern Plegia. Escaped months ago and they've been searching for her ever since, despite the fact that she's one of the cleverest women to walk their lands since Queen Ilya. I recognize her from the wanted signs that they showed me when I went for the latest trade meeting, nevermind how unfortunate the ending of it may have been."

"I—I swear! I don't have any idea what he's talking about!" Her voice trembled.

Chrom took one look at his knight, and then at the stuttering girl, her sword shaking in her hands, and then sighed before giving Frederick a clean nod. "I understand. She does have something about her that's dangerous…and I'd hate to leave her in Ylisse. What options do we have?"

"My strongest opinion lies in Regna Ferox," the man said, and Chrom looked at him in surprise, his hand twisting around the hilt of his sword that stuck out slightly from behind his cape, "The Khans have far harsher punishments for those who break the laws that have been set and they'll have the strength it takes to keep her captive, at least, for the time being."

"I see," Chrom said, and he sighed again before looking to the woman, whose eyes had grown hopeless, her mouth drawn into a thin line. "Then to Regna Ferox she will go. Would you care to escort Lissa back to Ylisstol as I take her there?"

Frederick gave something that was near to a growl. "Not nearly," he said roughly, "We'll go together. There's absolutely no chance I am leaving you unguarded with a _war criminal_ , milord. Please be reasonable."

"Not in any offense, Frederick, but…" He looked at the girl, who had, in attempt, pushed herself further from the group, her feet growing ever closer to a range where she was free to run. Frederick turned so he was able to cover from behind her, and she scowled. The mark on her hand glinted in the light as she held her sword at waist level, shaking. "She's not much of a threat. Perhaps she really has lost her memories."

"And perhaps I've married a Manakete and am moving to praise Naga in the Outrealms," he replied, and Chrom let his mouth tilt up in the corners, smiling as he pulled his own sword from his waist to wave it nonchalantly at the criminal.

"Have you? What a shame I missed the ceremony."

"Playful banter as of right now, milord, is perhaps not the best option."

"Ah, what a downer, Frederick," Chrom said, and he then turned to face the girl, shifting in a bit of a battle stance. "Drop your sword if you wish to keep your hand, girl. I show more mercy than my knight here does, I assure you."

She set her teeth, weighing her options, before letting the sword hit the soft ground with a thump, her shoulders sinking in realization. _I've been awake for, what, twenty minutes? And already I'm doomed to a fate that I believe is not mine._

Chrom reached forward to hide her sword in his cloak and then sheathed his own in its casing once more. He then turned to the other girl, who had been named Lissa in the midst of all the banter, and gave her a brief nod, his eyes shot with a slight gleam. "Up for a bit more walking, Lissa?"

Lissa scowled and stamped her staff into the ground, forming a rounded mark in the yellowed grass, but she complied nonetheless, sighing and nodding and twirling a pigtail between two of her fingers from her free hand. She then set her eyes upon the girl who had admitted defeat before she had even battled and watched as she looked to the sky in confusion, her eyes pleading, mouth turned down.

In a moment, Frederick had stepped forward and asked the criminal to hold out her hands, which she followed, letting him tie them together with heavy rope and a fixed knot tied with deft fingers. She didn't struggle as Lissa figured she would, but her shoulders slumped slightly, her nose crinkled in just the smallest way. She was still biting at her lip and it had begun to bleed, streaking red across her tanned skin.

Frederick then took to standing behind them as Chrom took to the front. "To Regna Ferox, then," the prince said as lightly as he could manage, and the knight nodded in agreement before starting at a reasonable pace behind the two women, unintentionally forcing them to walk at a brisker pace than either had planned.

The woman tested the ropes around her wrists and was met with major resistance, the burn of the harsh material scraping across her skin. It appeared there was no escape, no way to flee what had befallen her.

Instantly, thoughts shifted in her mind, twisting, turning; every possible escape route, battle tactic, and careful plan ran through her mind, one after the other, each sparing only herself as the one who needed to be free, the one who needed saving. She took hurried steps after the prince in front of her as she thought, and as she did, she realized that every thought that raced through her darkened mind was one of selfish intent, a plan that was meant for her and only her to find freedom—and to find some answers to her unexplained darkness.

Perhaps, she thought, she really was a war criminal after all.

* * *

The air was thick like water as they walked.

The woman felt suffocated as they trekked on as they had for hours now, moving swiftly across the Ylissean countryside. Chrom was obviously avoiding all kinds of civilization, as if she was any threat, and that only made the silence thicker, the atmosphere more intense, the fact that she knew what he was doing.

Lissa had taken to walking beside her, as if she needed some sort of company while she walked, her head hung low, her hair falling in curtains to shield her face from the world that she had so forgotten. The cleric carried her staff with a carelessness that made the prisoner want to smile; she was young, naïve—she was everything she herself should be, if the world had held out right. If she hadn't lost everything, if she remembered who she was…if she wasn't damned to a fate for a life that she couldn't recollect.

"I can tell you're afraid," Lissa said at last, low enough so that neither the knight behind them nor the prince ahead of them could hear, "Your hand shakes every time you take a step."

"Isn't this the way things are supposed to go?" she asked the girl, and in return, looked up so that her head was no longer hung in such shame, "From what I can recall, prisoners are always afraid when they're sentenced to their deaths."

"Not always," Lissa replied, and she looked to the prince walking ahead of her with a sort of fondness that made the criminal raise an eyebrow at her, lost; "My brother used to tell me tales of prisoners who walked with pride because they believed what they were doing was right."

"Your brother?" she asked, and her face colored in realization. "Chrom. I'm not sure why I'm surprised. He _is_ quite protective of you."

She laughed a bit under her breath. "He's dense and thick-headed and as stubborn as he'll get out, but he does care, I guess."

"Well he has me in binds," the woman said, holding up her hands and pulling them to emphasize how tightly she was bound, "And I highly doubt he's worried about the man with the lance."

"You really do have a silver tongue," Lissa said, smiling, as she toyed with her staff, "I mean, in the way of speech. You make yourself appealing just by making jokes."

The criminal tilted her head at the cleric for a moment before letting a slight smile spread across her own face. "I don't mean to," she admitted, "It's sort of a natural thing, I suppose."

"Frederick warned me during one our breaks that you may attempt to persuade me, but really…" The princess poked her tongue into her cheek for a moment, thinking, and then sighed. "I don't think you're all that bad. I just—I've got a weird feeling about you, you know? Like the feeling I get when I screw something up."

"Wonderful," the girl replied, softly, "I've always wanted to be recognized by my impeccable sense of 'something gone wrong'."

Lissa laughed again, but this time Frederick came up from behind, poking into her back with his lance and walking closely beside her. She shot a fleeting glance at her momentary companion and then sighed before stepping back behind her and walking alongside the knight, and the prisoner was left to walk alone once more, her worn, darkened boots making crunches against the damp rocks and soil.

And on they walked.

* * *

Regna Ferox was cold.

Yes, she had heard both men discussing the cold and the ice and the snow; she had heard the talks of how the people here judged on brute strength rather than thought or tactic; she had heard the chatter of how she was sure to be dead in days, because apparently, she was anything but prepared for what was soon to come.

And it made her afraid.

She knew she had felt fear before, a cold, spreading feeling that took her by the heart and soon took everything thereafter. Yet, without memories, she couldn't place where she had felt it, couldn't place _why_ she had felt it, and nothing after that really fell into place. She did know, however, that she was afraid. Highly afraid of the unknown, of a place that she had no recollection of, a place that she had only heard dark things about.

On top of everything, she had never really expected such a cold rush, especially in just a thin and frail cloak, a pair of trousers, and a button-up shirt, not to mention not a single form of defense on her, other than in, last resort, banging her binds against a skull or ribcage to protect her life. It was farfetched, maybe, but throughout the hours of walking, the desperate thoughts had begun to creep in like a disease, her head spinning.

The men had made Lissa stay a few treks away, due to her wearing a spring dress and highly unable of withstanding the freezing winds in it, but when she had turned away to sit beneath an oak tree, the girl had glanced at the prisoner with sad eyes, a longing to them that had confused even the criminal. It was almost as if…as if something was wrong—majorly wrong. Like something had gone off course. Which, in an overall view, the woman in binds figured since she was damned to a frozen hell to be killed off by people who depend on only brute strength and intentional pain, that something had, indeed, gone wrong, because who in Naga's name would ever do _that_ intentionally.

They walked far into Regna Ferox, but all she had seen was sheets and sheets of snow, the icy mixture of water and freeze forcing her limbs to shake further than they already were. She was, to a certain extent, thankful for the cold; at least the two men were not aware of whether she was shaking of fear or of lack of heat, though she knew it was a combination of both.

The snow wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, though, according to Frederick, who had loaned Chrom an overcoat because of his ironically sleeveless top. Small flurries fell in gentle sheets, landing with a grace that would of impressed the girl, if not for her current state and position.

They walked on even further, and the woman figured they would have to make another night of awkward camp, though neither seemed to slow nor falter in their onward movement to a place that she had no sight of. Their first night of camp had been horrible, her unable to sleep with the watchful eye of Frederick keeping tabs on her every movement and the binds of her wrists rubbing further and further into her reddening skin.

Finally, they came upon a larger building than the scanter homes they had passed on the way in, a stone barrack with high fences and loaded cannons donning the tops. They were met by a stout man with a beard and a lance larger than Frederick's.

"Who goes there?" The man asked, scanning the snow with careful eyes, and then grinned at the sight of a blue-haired royal, nodding in content. "Lord Chrom! What an honor it is to see you again. What brings you to Ferox?"

"A…business, of a sort," the Prince replied, and he face turned grim. "We have a message for the Khans that we asked is delivered directly and as soon as possible."

The soldier stood in the snow, leant slightly against his lance, with an interested expression. He nodded for the man to continue.

Frederick stepped in. "We ask that you deliver a prisoner, with the message that she is to be taught a lesson in how she has wronged Plegia, and in turn, the countries surrounding it. I'm afraid that…Lady Emmeryn will not be pleased, and thus, we cannot return her to Ylisstol. It is best that Regna Ferox deals with the criminals that dare to breach our laws, considering it concerns us all."

The soldier's face lit up at the prospect of doing something important and he gave a shallow bow. "Of course," he said, and his face stretched into something close to approval, "If anyone knows true justice, it's Regna Ferox. I'll do my best, sir." He then looked past both the knight and the prince to set eyes on the claimed criminal, only to let his mouth drop open in surprise.

She stood balanced to her left side, her hands bound tightly in front of her, with dark hair that blew gently in the snowy breeze. Her eyes watched him with a shockingly discreet gaze, the emerald there outstanding the routine, common white of the snow and of the royal's skin. Her mouth had adopted a blue tint, while her cheeks had taken on a redder, more potent shade of flush. He could tell that she was shivering, even with the determined set of her face watching him, almost as though she was daring him to try her. When he found a thought in his head, he finally spoke.

"I'm surprised she made it this far," he said quietly, and Chrom looked up in surprise. "She's practically frozen. If you wish for her to make it as a whole to the capital, perhaps I should fetch a coat…and a few more men for an escort."

Frederick only nodded. "Do what you will with her, now," he replied, shaking a bit of snow out his hair and then turning his back, "Just so long as she makes it to Khans alive and stays far from our country, Ylisse has no further business with a criminal."

"Understood."

The soldier called for more men at once, and two appeared from the door under orders to keep an eye on the shaking girl. Frederick gave the girl a disapproving nod before moving so he was faced towards the path they had just came from, his hands clamped tightly around his lance. Chrom followed his lead, but not before walking towards her and shaking his head.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, and then he turned tail to stand beside the knight, hidden within his overcoat.

She watched them both for a moment, and as she opened her mouth to speak, her teeth chattered and she shuddered. "I—I do not know what you wish for me to say," she said, her words slightly broken, her lip splitting from the cold, "but I will not wish you harm, even if you have damned me to a death that I may not deserve." Blood welled in the cracks of lips, where she had bitten it the day before, before she continued. "May you find the stars," she said finally, "and may the tables be turned when we next meet."

And with that, the girl turned her back and disappeared into the building under guide of the two guards who held tightly to her forearms.

* * *

 ** _So...that happened._**

 ** _PLOT TWIST._**

 _ **Well really, just what makes this fanfiction different from the others, I suppose ;) Honestly though, this was such a hard chapter for me to write. This same turn of events (minus the whole, ah, "Avatar being a criminal" thing, of course) has to be on this website AT LEAST a few hundred times...so I hope this one was a bit more unique and that you'll stick around for some more!**_

 _ **Reviews are highly welcomed, reads are greatly appreciated, and I hope you enjoyed!**_


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